At the present time, in accordance with the conventional way of scheduling a videorecorder, a user has to read in a magazine the hours, channels, titles, abstracts, and other features of the program. Then, the user has to enter the channels, the hours of start and stop of chosen programs, by hand onto a videorecorder keyboard.
It is a long, tedious and not error-free process, the result of which is not accurate, because the TV companies do not broadcast (air or cable) their programs in compliance with the published hours in time-tables. As a result, if a user does not want to miss a part of a program, he must schedule the videorecorder with a margin of 5 to 10 minutes. Furthermore, the conventional way is less and less convenient, with the increasing number of TV channels (air, cable, satellite), some with different local times.
The problem of easily scheduling the videorecorder, and the problem of accurately starting and stopping a recording of the videorecorder has to be considered as a whole because it is not possible to consider a scheduling process if one does not know when the recording is to start or stop. Also, the video recorder cannot stop or start without knowing upon which parameter the videorecorder has to stop and start. In a conventional way, the scheduling method uses the published hours, and the keyboard of the videorecorder. The hourly start/stop record method compares the published hours stored before, and the time of the clock in the videorecorder's timer.
Up to the present, several systems were proposed in order to solve the general problem of helping the user in such a way, so that one can easily and accurately schedule the videorecorder.
In France, the CCETT (Centre Comm. d'Etudes de Telediffusion et al Telecommunication) laboratories have suggested a system called EPEOS and also known as MOISE (Messagerie de Programmes Organisee par l'identification des Sources et de leurs Emissions). This system works with the help of a modified ANTIOPE magazine. For each TV channel the user calls in a broadcast ANTIOPE magazine. The data broadcast then occurs, for each TV channel, during the blanking interval of each TV channel. The user makes an un-interactive choice of the programs he wants. The ANTIOPE protocol and terminal are modified in order for the user to be able to define and address, among the ANTIOPE data, sub-articles related to a specific program description. The user picks out the chosen program with the help of an index (a mouse) which is moved on the screen. The MOISE system does not use a straightforward start/stop scheme.
In accordance with the MOISE system, two articles, one describing the program on the air, the other describing the next program to be aired, are broadcast three times a second. Each article contains the program mnemonic, hour and duration. The hour and duration are permanently updated in accordance with the programs' real execution. The two articles are indirect start/stop broadcast codes. Within the system, it is compulsory to synchronize the timer clock. The start/stop recording is made through a comparison of the timer clock time with the stored hour which can be changed by the broadcast articles.
VPS (Video Programming System) is a system proposed in the Federal Republic of Germany by the television channels ARD/ZDF. It has been in use since August 1985. Succinctly, the system consists in broadcasting a label or digital signal related to a program meanwhile the program is aired. If the label is corresponding to the label of a chosen program, then the program is recorded. The digital broadcast of the label is made for all the duration of the program, onto the line 16. In the beginning, the conceivers of VPS have envisioned a data acquisition system through a bar-code reader. The bar-codes would have been printed onto the German newspapers, but the German press opposed it, for a lot of reasons. The final and only solution was then to broadcast the supposed-to-be starting hour of the program as the label. If the program is late, VPS broadcasts the supposed-to-start hour, with a get-ready-to-record signal, until the program really does start. The user schedules the programs' recording onto the keyboard of the VCR in the same way as the old way of scheduling. There is no real improvement to help the user to schedule his VCR.
To cope with these problems, the ARD/ZDF are thinking of upgrading the VPS system to the VPV system. Basically, the VPV is a VPS of which the data acquisition system is a CEEFAX broadcast videography. It is interesting to notice that the CEEFAX and the VPS digital broadcast schemes are not compatible.
An ARD/ZDF data acquisition system through a broadcast viedography has been publised in a paper (Rundfunktecknische Mitteilungen Vol. 26 1982. Nov-Dec.: Videotext programmiert videorecorder, Hofman et al.). By its technical principles and capabilities, it is completely different from the system in accordance with the invention which uses a computer network. Following this paper, it is interesting to notice that its authors think that only the television companies can solve the problems of the real start/stop recording system. It will be shown that my system bypasses the principle of the intervention of the television companies which have plagued all the previous systems.
Because of their technological principles, in these previous systems, the digital codes broadcasting process is managed by the television companies, as regards only their own television program broadcast. In the MOISE and VPV systems, the data acquisition system, i.e., the broadcast videography magazine, is managed also by the television companies.
All the above systems are not universal, from their very principle. There is no way to force all the television companies to use one of these previous systems.